


Mourning for Mother

by SonjaJade



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 19:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10472595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonjaJade/pseuds/SonjaJade
Summary: Sciezka thinks she should have done more for her mother, Jean tells her she did just fine.





	

**Author's Note:**

> FMA Fic Contest Prompt: Survivor's Guilt

Sciezka trembled as the pallbearers lowered the casket into the grave and began to cover the lid with loose dirt.  She and Havoc, the vicar and the gravediggers were the only witnesses to the burial of the mousy young woman’s mother.  And after the men finished their jobs and went away, Sciezka and Havoc lingered for a very long time.  
   
“Come on, Sciezka,” Jean said quietly as the arm that was wrapped around her tightened.  “They’re gonna lock the gates soon, we need to go.”  
   
“I should’ve done more,” she said almost incoherently.  “I should have worked less and spent more time by her side.  I should have continued to put my life off until she was gone.”  
   
“Sweetheart, you know she didn’t want you to do that.  Hell, she practically forced you to keep seeing me.” He saw the groundskeepers beginning to gather by the gates and he motioned for just one more minute.  “Your mother loved you so much, Sciezka.  She wanted you to go out and live your life rather than wait for her to die.  Don’t you think if she’d been able to get out of bed, she would have been living her life too?”  
   
Sciezka lost herself to sobs again, and that’s when Jean bent down and scooped her up, holding her the way a mother might hold a tired toddler, making damn sure her rear was well covered.  “Cry, honey,” he said as he carried her down the hill toward his truck.  “Blow your nose on my collar and soak my jacket, I don’t care.  But please don’t feel guilty.”  His hand rubbed circles on her back.  “You took good care of her and put her in a good facility when you couldn’t care for her.  You did everything right.”  
   
“Then why do I feel like I’ve done something wrong?” she wibbled.  
   
“Because you’re still alive,” he murmured, recalling his brief stint in Ishval, during the bloodiest part of it… recalling his own guilt of making it out of that disaster with nothing more than a bad cut on his leg.  
   
It took a lot of handkerchiefs, a lot of rum, and a lot of time and patience on Havoc’s part, but eventually she settled down and fell into a fitful sleep curled up in his arm on her couch.  He placed a kiss to her head after gently tugging off her glasses.  When he tried to get up and go home, she whimpered, “I don’t want to be alone, Mama!” in her sleep.  
   
He looked down at her troubled face, then sighed and kicked his shoes off.  Propping his feet up on the coffee table, he got as comfortable as he could and tugged a blanket from the back of the sofa over them both.  “I’m right here,” he reassured her, and hours later, he found sleep as well.


End file.
